The development of information technologies affects work, social interaction and every other aspects of modern life. As the wireless communication technologies progress, the deployment of hardware devices becomes simple and inexpensive, which accelerates the applications of information technologies at home, transportation, environmental surveillance, medical, and so on. The internet technology also improves with more and more information services become available. Not all the communication protocols of these services are compatible. The known digital video streaming technologies use different specifications, and some of the specifications are proprietary.
An important application field of information technologies is the digital home, where a plurality of sensors and devices of different specifications are connected through different transmission protocols to the gateway for accesses to backend network services. A common scenario is that the digital home service environment is deployed by a single service provider, and the home sensor uses different standards to integrate home devices and connect through set-top box or gateway to remote site services. The remote site service providers collects the device data or set own portal to connect social network so that the users can inquire the status of the sensor, such as, security service provided by security companies. In known technology, user installs proprietary equipment provided the company, such as, monitors and door access control, and the equipment connects through set-top box or gateway to monitor platform in the security company. When the security company detects, such as, doors ajar or intrusions, the user on the social network is notified. This known architecture does not allow the user to select the plurality of home devices, such as, set-top box, gateway, sensor and use or connect simultaneously to a plurality of potential services. As such, many services find it difficult to reach potential users.
Social network is one of the most important technologies, and becomes a center of establishing relationships between many users and third parties. A social network may include specific elements. Through the social network, users may subscribe personal online profiles, list contact information, receive notifications from online services, and set access permission, priority and privacy. A group of users may also establish or extend their specialties and social networks. Social networks may provide many kinds of tools to allow users to informally or voluntarily interact with others, contribute information and participate activities. The users may develop various social application services through the interface provided by the social network platform. Each member of a social network may access the desired service as he/she wishes. The role of actors of a social network may be either a man or a machine, and the connection of the actors may be the relationship of either man-to-machine, man-to-man or machine-to-machine.
In the aforementioned known architecture, no common platform is set up between the network service providers and the home devices. When the social network is directly applied to the home device, problems may arise. For example, the messages from the home device cannot be integrated and processed in advance, and therefore the concept of sharing of service level or promotion function of service level does not exist. Also, the service used by the home device is restricted to the default setting by the device and service providers and the user fails to select the network service to be connected by the device. Or, the user may not learn of the network services promoted by service providers and could not find or broker available network services for the home device.